A spokesman for Ed Case explained that the newly sworn-in congressman was referencing something that his Japanese-American wife says about him, but some accused him of trying to score political points by playing the race card.

Democratic Representative for Hawaii's first district Ed Case faced public backlash criticism for his comments on racial identity, prompting him to apologise.

"I'm an Asian trapped in a white body," Case claimed on Tuesday at a Washington, D.C. event dedicated to newly minted members of Congress with Asian American and Pacific Islander roots.

Congressman Ed Case, who represents a majority Asian district in Honolulu — “I’m an Asian trapped in a white body” pic.twitter.com/Roro6Yk8CW

Ed Case represented Hawaii in the House between 2002 and 2007. He announced the end of his political career in 2013, confirming that he was joining the Outrigger Enterprises Group, a Hawaii-based company operating beach resorts worldwide.

In 2018, however, he made a successful comeback to politics, defeating half a dozen Democratic rivals in the primary and went on to win the general election for Hawaii's 1st Congressional District with 73.1 per cent of the vote.

Hello,
!

We are committed to protecting your personal information and we have updated our Privacy Policy to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a new EU regulation that went into effect on May 25, 2018.

Please review our Privacy Policy. It contains details about the types of data we collect, how we use it, and your data protection rights.

Since you already shared your personal data with us when you created your personal account, to continue using it, please check the box below:

I agree to the processing of my personal data for the purpose of creating a personal account on this site, in compliance with the Privacy Policy.

If you do not want us to continue processing your data, please click here to delete your account.

promotes the use of narcotic / psychotropic substances, provides information on their production and use;

contains links to viruses and malicious software;

is part of an organized action involving large volumes of comments with identical or similar content ("flash mob");

“floods” the discussion thread with a large number of incoherent or irrelevant messages;

violates etiquette, exhibiting any form of aggressive, humiliating or abusive behavior ("trolling");

doesn’t follow standard rules of the English language, for example, is typed fully or mostly in capital letters or isn’t broken down into sentences.

The administration has the right to block a user’s access to the page or delete a user’s account without notice if the user is in violation of these rules or if behavior indicating said violation is detected.